


We've Traveled This Old Road Before

by HelicopterDarlings



Series: Snapshots in a universe where everything is good and nobody dies (horribly, at least) [3]
Category: Huntik: Secrets & Seekers
Genre: F/M, Multi, awkward cut-offs in dialogue, everything is in raw unedited form, inconsistent storytelling, prompt, this is mainly just an excuse to clear out my drafts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelicopterDarlings/pseuds/HelicopterDarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it's best if we stick to the classics.</p>
<p>(or, a series of incomplete drabbles using Tumblr AU prompts)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> be forewarned: all of the things i am posting in this series are incomplete. this fic is just an excuse to clear out my drafts. You could call them open-ended, you could use your imagination and continue it, you could write your own spin based on the prompt. go crazy!
> 
> Title from Us the Duo's "Stop, Just Love".

III – if a guy is hitting on you and he is clearly the alpha in his group of guys, go for the third-in-command and undermine their whole power structure

* * *

 

“I can’t believe your guard dog let you come to the bar by yourself,” Zhalia says. The strobe lights shimmer across her light green dress, borrowed from Lin. “I would’ve thought he’d shadow you throughout the dance floor and throw away all your drinks.”

“I thought so too,” Sophie says, taking a sip of her mojito (virgin, just to be safe), “but then Lin said something along the lines of ‘Tai Chi is superior to Muay Thai’ and he positively flipped out. I went away as soon as he started slipping into his accent.”

Zhalia raises a perfectly-done brow and turns to their alcove. Santiago was indeed engaged in a heated discussion with a flushed-faced Lin Storm, mouth moving too fast for any lip reading. He crosses his arms over the table and leans over to her, saying something that made Lin slam the table, eyes flashing. “Oh God, they’re posturing again,” she says, taking a sip of her French 75.

Sophie just nods, watching the show. Scarlett is sitting on Lin’s right, typing on her phone and ignoring the heated fight, and Dellix and Lucas were silently taking pics from the alcove next to them. “Sometimes I just wonder why we don’t smash their heads together and get it over with.”

“We don’t do that because all of our bets would be null,” they turn around to the bartender, Dante, who was topping off the tray of shots Zhalia had ordered. He taps the bar counter, the hollow sound betrayed by a soft thudding like coins jingling- their glass jar named SEXUAL TENSION resides under it.

“You mean _our_ ,” Zhalia corrects, referring to the rest of the group, “bets. You’re already out, they didn’t get together during the company mixer like you predicted.”

Dante sighs with mock resignation. “I had hopes that the hard liquor and their mutual hate of Rassimov would lead to _something_ at least.”

“Yeah, a fist fight,” Sophie agrees. Rassimov was frequently called _slave-driver_ in certain circles, _madman_ in some, and after the events of the last company mixer, _broker_ took on a completely different meaning.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket and she opens it to see a barrage of texts.

**From: Scarlett (Johansson)**  
\- never knew how sexy Santiago was until he started speaking Spanish  
\- i’m recording this rant and using it as my ringtone  
\- also please tell him to wear more sleeveless shirts when we go out because *wide eyes emoji*

**From: Sophie C.  
** \- I’ll make a mental note to cut off all his shirts next time

**From: Scarlett (Johansson)  
** -You’re the best

**From: jerkface  
** \- add this to the blackmail folder [file: lin-and-u-pt26.jpg]

**From: baby sis  
** -added to FIGHTS. which subfolder, ‘provoked’ or ‘honor code’

**From: jerkface  
** -‘drunken’

**From: baby sis  
** -already??? Z didn’t even bring the shots yet

**From: jerkface**  
-he took mine and lin’s  
-bc Z’s too busy flirting with the bartender

 Sophie looks up and indeed, there was the two giving each other bedroom eyes like nobody’s business. She nurses her drink as Dante is called to the other end of the bar and Zhalia takes the tray of shots.

Distantly, Sophie thinks of the jar under her work table, labeled ARE THEY OR AREN’T THEY.

“Hey, there’s a bunch of prepubescent lemurs at your seven.” Zhalia balances the tray on her left hand. “Want me to field them off?”

Sophie has always been the baby of the group despite being 24 years old, and the unspoken rule during nights out like this was that if Santiago or Lucas was unavailable, the others have to keep an eye out for her.

She motions for Zhalia to go to her left and she pretends to take a shot from the tray, staring out at her peripheral vision. In another alcove in the corner she can make out several boys whose ringleader seems to be a brunette, staring at her from behind a shot glass. To his left are another brunette that looks like he had little to eat and a shifty-eyed redhead; to his right is a blonde that looks like he doesn’t want to be here and a white-haired guy (probably dyed) wearing a sheer shirt, of all things.

“I think I can handle this,” she says to Zhalia. The woman nods and walks away, evading the dancing crowd without spilling a single drink, like the world’s most elegant cocktail waitress.

A tap on her shoulder. She catches the drink that Dante slides to her, raising her eyebrow. “An angel face, courtesy of the guy in the red jacket in the alcove over there,” he points to the boys that were eyeing her. The brunette raises his drink as soon as her eyes meet his.

She eyes the glass as though it held snake venom, even though it was in the specialized glass that Santiago requested for her to use and Dante always gives her non-alcoholic drinks whenever he’s not around.

Taking a sip, she nods to the brunette who in turn smirks at her from his glass. He is cute, but she’s not in the mood for finding a potential booty call. She just got away from Santiago’s overprotective mother hen thumb and wants to prove that she can take care of herself, even just for a night. She doesn’t want to risk it, even if the guy is hot.

Sophie leans back on the bar counter, and turns so that she can get a good view of the fight going on in the alcove. Lin is all riled up, looking like she’s about to jump across the table and strangle Santiago. She grabs a drink from the tray and waves it around, somehow managing not to spill anything on her dark green dress borrowed from Zhalia.

Santiago sits down, arms still crossed. Even from this distance and this lighting, Sophie knows that he is pleased with himself from receiving such a reaction from normally even-tempered Lin.

She sets her unfinished drink on the counter and stands up, scanning for a path around the drunken dancers and the groping perverts on the floor when she feels a tap on her shoulder.

 Standing behind her is a very cute blond boy with blue eyes, one of the guys in the squad. Sophie represses a sigh. _They just have to pick the shy ones to be wingmen, don’t they?_

“Hello,” he says. Sophie is surprised that his voice isn’t as childish as he looks. “Uh, I really don’t know how this thing goes but my friend over there,” he gestures, “wants to talk to you.”

“How do I tell him no?” Sophie replies.

“Just like that,” he says to Sophie’s surprise. “Or, I could just go over to him now and say that I mucked it up.” His laugh is low and echoing. Nice. “He just might let me go home and relieve me of any wingman duties in the near future.”

“What, you don’t like going out?”

“Oh, you mean like in clubs? No, it’s fine, it’s just that I thought that we’d spend more time having fun and less,” he waves his hand, “picking up people.”

Sophie raises an eyebrow. “Maybe this is your friend’s idea of fun.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “Den has an ever-changing definition of fun. Must come with being newly twenty one.” Sophie didn’t choke on her angel face, but it was a near thing. “Although I don’t remember being this fickle at his age.”

She sees Santiago in the corner of her eye, warily eyeing the blond beside her, and decides to rectify the situation lest he thinks that the guy put something in her drink. She turns an incredulous face to the blond, expression apparent enough that Santiago can see it from across the room.

“What do you mean he just turned twenty one?”

“Exactly that. What, did the leather jacket and the piercing stare throw you off?”

“More like the manspreading,” Sophie cackles, referring to the rather open way that the guy-   
Den, apparently- sits. “Oh my God. Then why does he act like he’s the toughest shit in the room?”

“Probably because he might be?” Cute Blond says.


	2. titanic AU, of sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IV – ‘someone set fire to the adjoining room by accident and were locked into the practice room without a way to escape- no, dude, we are not like the quartet on the Titanic, now help me open this stupid window, blockhead’

“Den, Den, what the fuck dude, help me out here.”

“What if we like, died here? We’d be like the famous ghosts haunting the music room. Scare off the freshmen who’d play at night, yeah?”

“If there’s a music room still standing by then. Convince me to become the school ghost after we get out?”

“We’d be legends, like the quartet from the Titanic.”

“No, we’d be urban myth, like that Bloody Mary rip-off in the pottery room. I want to live damn it, not stuck in here scaring the next janitor that comes along.”

“Fine, but just know that there was a time when we could have been scaring people out of their wits by playing the recorder and you turned it down. I hope you take that regret to your grave.”

“Just as long as it’s not this one.”


	3. sex meme/prompt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 - laughing during sex

Zhalia didn’t realize how easy it was for cuddling to quickly devolve into sex. Drinks, yes. Emotional outbursts, sure. Sexting, dressing up together, adrenaline after a mission, check, check, and check. But cuddling? Zhalia associates that with a level of intimacy that transcends the platform of lust and romance. Cuddling is a thing that makes her feel safe and warm and comforted, given to her by close friends during times of stress. It has nothing to do with the musk or messy strings or imperative need that comes along with sex. It’s a safe place undefiled by such animal instincts like fucking.

(The universe sets out to prove her wrong, as always)

Lazy afternoons are spent watching old movies, engaging in cook-offs of whatever’s in the fridge, and an impromptu wine-tasting session in Dante’s fully-stocked cellar (there are, in fact, some Italian stereotypes that even Dante can’t shake off). Needless to say, they were both buzzed and tired when the evening rolled around. They resort to watching Tale of Tales (a unanimous decision, Zhalia liked the narrative and Dante loved the _Pentamerone_ when he was a kid) in the video room, cuddling with each other.

At least it started out with cuddling.

Now here she was, lying on her side, arm cramping from where it was wound around Dante’s neck and kissing him for all it was worth, heat traveling through her body pressed flush against his. Zhalia blames it on the wine they had earlier.

The sea monster’s heart beats in the background, rhythmic, the sound reverberating through the enormous sound system as Dante’s hand wanders under her shirt, fingers tracing patterns on her lower back and sending thrills shooting up her spine. Breaking away from his soft lips was a harsh necessity; she reminded herself that she needed air to breathe. An exercise in futility, since he moves his attention and his wicked mouth to her jawline, leaving a burning path from her lips to her neck and mouthing the sweet spot on her collarbone. Her sigh turns into a moan when he nips it.

One hand moves to snake around his waist, the other finds its way in his hair, loving the feel of it between her fingers. Somehow she keeps on forgetting to ask him about his shampoo. Absentmindedly, she twines a lock of it on her finger and _tugs_. Dante stifles a moan in the crook of her neck.

Movement, and suddenly Dante’s weight is on top of her, and oh.


End file.
